A few days ago, former Biggest Loser exercise trainer Jillian Michaels popped up on my feed with her best attempt to marginalize racism by stating that “only 2% of American’s owned slaves” prior to the civil war. Although I do my best to avoid Maga white supremist these days, I can only imagine how excited all the racists I once knew were to grab on to a superficial single datapoint and justify their oppressive cruelty toward others. Because the entire identity of most of White Christian conservative republicans is rooted in oppressive systems that feed capitalism, they grab onto influencers like Michaels to ease their insecurities with that release of affirming survival dopamine. And, as we sit in an authoritarian dictatorship that is removing true history from our textbooks, museums, universities and policies, I need to follow up with this reoccurring narrative to normalize the inhumane treatment of Black and Brown communities. 

Michaels, like so many other White folks I know, do their best to create a story line of history without the true impact of slavery in the US. The reality is the wholistic wealth of our country was created on the backs of slaves and more importantly, by the influence of that top 2% normalizing chattel slavery while dismissing and deflecting their direct impact on the GDP. Let’s table this “2%” for a minute and look at a few other influential stats. 

.0000049% of Americans play NFL football in the US and .000000092% of American’s own the teams. Yet, the NFL generates approximately $20.5 Billion in revenue every year. 

.0000002% of White men own the seven most popular Social Media platforms that reach 73% of Americans, five of which generate $364.36 Billion in revenue every year. 

The White American male population is .013% of the world population, however, hold 65% of all American elected representation, which makes them the largest contributors of world influence, to include the wars we participate in, the genocide we neglect, and the harm that comes to our own citizens. 

2% of American’s owned slaves prior to the civil war to include TEN of the first 12 presidents that were slave owners, in addition to the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president, Thomas Jefferson, who exploited and r@ped one particular child slave he favored, Sally Hemmings, who bore six of his children, five of which lived and have descendants living today. 

The $1, $2, $20, $10, and $100 bills all feature the faces of slave owners including Andrew Jackson, who authored and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, relocating tens of thousands of Natives, causing the death of approximately 16,000 Natives.

Before the civil war, Mississippi had the highest number of millionaires per capita than any other state in the US derived from human ownership.  Compare that to today with Mississippi having the highest child poverty rate in the US, highest maternal and infant mortality rates and lowest scholastic test scores 160 years after slavery was abolished.

Our entire economy depended on slavery with 50% of all exports consisting of cotton that was picked by Black slaves. Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware all considered succeeding from the Union and the most notable was New York City, who had the highest risk of financial loss with the conclusion of slavery. White enslavers financed their operations through NY banks and protected their assets through NY insurance companies. Many businessmen in NY started in the south and still relied on slave labor once moving north in many capacities. New York City received 40% of all US cotton revenue as the highest exporter of cotton in the world.

Only 2% of American’s owned slaves, however after the civil war, we had Jim Crow, redlining, segregation and the cradle to prison pipeline opening the door for modern slavery. The New Deal was signed in 1933 and America boomed with a thriving economy, taxing the wealthy at 94% and creating social programs that have allowed the Baby Boomer generation to create more wealth than any previous generation in the US. The turning point of cultural and political change was MLK’s march on Washington during the Civil Rights movement. Thereafter, White American’s did not want to see Black and Brown American’s have access to the same socialized resources, including SCOTUS Lewis Powell. Powell loudly protested Dr. Kings ideology, and who wrote a popular widespread manifesto in 1971 for the Chamber of Commerce stating that democracy was a threat to the wealthiest Americans. Between the lust for more money, power and their hatred for Black America, one by one, the Bommer generation embraced neoliberalism and pulled programs away from their children and grandchildren. They destroyed our pensions and forced us into employer-based health insurance raising our health care cost exponentially. The wealthy White communities dodged the Vietnam war yet overwhelmingly supported sending their children to Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 despite the lack of involvement of each country in the terrorist attack on American soil. They have obliterated education, provided more social programs and tax cuts for the rich, and have systemically done more harm to our poorest communities than any other subgroup in history. The Boomer generation, who is hoarding more wealth and real estate than any other generation, has created an economy where their grandchildren would need to make $66/hour to have the same buying power as their grandparents did in the 1970’s. My husband shared the best analogy recently that said, “our grandparents planted a tree for their grandchildren, and our parents cut it down to build themselves another vacation home,” and it was the most real illustration I had ever heard. 

And now, after spending 50 years leveraging white supremacist propaganda through decades of overtly racist leadership, our parents finally voted in an authoritarian dictator. A man who is the antithesis of the dark triad, a crass, womanizing racist that is obsessed with eugenics, changing history to erase the truth about slavery and dismantling the last few programs that could have offered our children and grandchildren opportunity for a fraction of the wealth they had access too. And if you listen, they will tell you the root of their passion for these outcomes when they cheer while ICE rips apart Latino families, sending them to concentration camps. You can watch them post, praising their Lord, while innocent Black men are arrested in mass with little to no recourse in an overly policed DC.  And even the poorest of rural America will hang their leaders flag embracing the white supremist oppressive policies that will deny their own children food and health care.

Marginalizing the 2% of slave ownership over 246 years, stating it “wasn’t a big deal,” is like stating that Steve Jobs did not change the entire trajectory and course of our world by creating the Iphone. White supremacy, that created racism, will be the single largest unconscious bias that moderates the downfall of society. And ignorant individuals, like Jillian Michaels, is leading the way to suffering, destruction and pain for us all.